The freelance life: that time I told somebody no

As a freelance writer (or gig worker), I've found it's incredibly hard to tell people no. If I say no, I won't get the work. If I say no, they won't ask me again. If I say no, that's one less chance I have to put something in my portfolio. If I say no, that's …

Love is a sacrifice

We talked about Genesis 22 in Sunday School at church today: a familiar Bible story of God commanding Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. If you grew up in the LDS Church, this lesson is typically the same: you talk about how Abraham waited decades for this son; how God had promised him seed, numbering as great …

There’s no real forgiveness on the internet

I couldn't delete all traces of the post I accidentally published late last night (well, technically, early this morning). That's how the internet rolls. You can't delete things entirely. No matter how much you pray and cry and confess your sins and try to satisfy the demands of justice by doing anything anything in your …

My 2018 hashtag (better than a list of resolutions)

This year, my hashtag of choice is #becausehappiness. Instead of writing a list of resolutions, I'm going to learn about and share things related to happiness. I like this way of doing things. It works for me. Granted, for my hashtag last year, #yearofbeautiful, I didn’t put together as many posts as I envisioned in …

My #yearofbeautiful summarized

At the beginning of this year, I decided to have a theme instead of creating New Year’s Resolutions. I called it my #yearofbeautiful. This is my summation post of that year, in blogs. As children, work, and life have become busier, I let this blog slip and I didn’t post frequently. However, I feel like …

Will somebody drive to Kamas and buy me some donuts?

I wrote this as an attempt to get a job with a magazine as their humor columnist. I didn't get the job. It was good times trying, though. Now, you can hear my story. It's from last summer, up in Park City, so I get to include the video Google made for me from my …

Grit and authenticity #yearofbeautiful

The culture of the Carlquists is grit. Carl Arvid Carlquist was born in Sweden in 1857. He moved to Utah, raised his family here, had a son, Carl, who had a daughter, Edith, and she is my Grandma DeeDee. I am a Carlquist. From Angela Duckworth's book, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance, she says the …

Connecting with others by asking, “How do you spend most of your time?” #yearofbeautiful

I thrive off of connecting with people so a big part of my #yearofbeautiful initiative is doing this better. It's my third item (of 3) on my list: "I will strengthen my connection with others." I find, often (especially since joining the SAHM world), that I don't know how to ask if a new person …

daily habit tracker to feel more confident – #yearofbeautiful

It's time to get back on track with my #yearofbeautiful initiative, and this time, I'm working on my goal of FEELING more confident. To do this, I wanted a visual that shows areas where I rock. It will also show areas where I am skipping out so I'm hoping that means if I'm not feeling …

Writing, then forgetting, then finding it again…

I have found my own words, in writing, without memory of writing them. The first time I can remember this happening was when I was first home from a summer of door-to-door sales. I opened up a tape recorder (because it was the year 2000, yo) to replace the batteries and found a tiny, folded …